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Judge Guilty Of Racketeering In Kic…

Pa. Judge Guilty Of Racketeering In Kickback

Case
by THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

February 18, 2011 text size A A A

A former Pennsylvania juvenile court judge was convicted Friday of racketeering in a case that
accused him of sending youth offenders to for-profit detention centers in exchange for millions of
dollars in illicit payments from the builder and owner of the lockups.

Luzerne County ex-Judge Mark Ciavarella, 61, left the bench in disgrace two years ago after
prosecutors charged him with engineering one of the biggest courtroom frauds in U.S. history by
using juvenile delinquents as pawns in a plot to get rich.

Federal prosecutors accused Ciavarella and a second judge, Michael Conahan, of taking more
than $2 million in bribes from the builder of the PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care
detention centers and extorting hundreds of thousands of dollars from the facilities' co-owner.
Ciavarella insisted the payments were legal and denied that he incarcerated youths for money.

A federal jury in Scranton returned a mixed verdict, convicting Ciavarella of 12 counts, including
racketeering and conspiracy, and acquitting him of 27 counts, including extortion. The guilty
verdicts related to nearly $1 million that the builder paid to the judges.

Ciavarella was expressionless as the verdicts were being read. Prosecutors called him a flight
risk and asked that he be held pending sentencing, but he was allowed to remain free. He is
likely to get a prison sentence of more than 12 years, according to prosecutors.

Prosecutors alleged Ciavarella and Conahan plotted to shut down the dilapidated county-run
juvenile detention center in 2002 and arrange for the construction of the PA Child Care facility
outside Wilkes-Barre.

Ciavarella, who presided over juvenile court, sent youths to PA Child Care and later to its sister
facility in western Pennsylvania while he was taking payments from Robert Mericle, a prominent
builder and close friend of Ciavarella, and Robert Powell, a high-powered attorney who co-owned
the youth lockups.

The judge, known for his harsh and autocratic courtroom demeanor, filled the beds of the private
lockups with children as young as 10. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court dismissed thousands of
juvenile convictions issued by Ciavarella, saying he ran his courtroom with "complete disregard
for the constitutional rights of the juveniles," including the right to legal counsel and the right to
intelligently enter a plea.

His rough treatment of youths — whom he often had handcuffed and shackled — did not figure
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into his corruption trial, which focused on the payments from Mericle and Powell. But prosecutor
Gordon Zubrod told jurors in his closing argument that Luzerne County's juveniles were indeed
victimized by Ciavarella — that he had used them as "pawns in a scheme to enrich himself."

Ciavarella had leverage over Powell because Powell needed the judge to send youths to his
heavily mortgaged detention centers, Zubrod said.

Taking the stand in his own defense, the former judge acknowledged to jurors that he failed to
report the payments on his tax returns and hid them from the public, but he denied any plot to
take kickbacks or extort money.

Ciavarella told jurors that he thought he was legally entitled to Mericle's money, calling it a
"finder's fee" for introducing Mericle to Powell. He insisted he took no further steps to make sure
that Mericle got the contract to build the detention centers, saying that Mericle was hired by
Powell because he was the low bidder.

The former judge pointed to a 2008 conversation — secretly recorded by Powell while he was
wearing a wire for the FBI — in which he told Powell and Conahan: "I had nothing to do with it,
other than Rob Mericle coming to me and saying, 'I want to do this for you.' He came to me. I
didn't go to him. ... Never in my wildest dreams did I ever think that it was illegal."

Ciavarella also denied to the jury that he extorted Powell, who had testified for the prosecution
that he was forced to pay the judges nearly $600,000 after they agreed to send juvenile
delinquents to his new lockup. The payments were disguised as rent on a Florida condominium
owned by the judges' wives.

Ciavarella testified that it was Conahan who made the arrangements with Powell. He said
Conahan told him that Powell had agreed to pay them $15,000 a month for 60 months to lease
the waterfront Florida property. Prosecutors scoffed at that explanation, questioning why Powell
— a successful trial lawyer and businessman — would be so foolish as to pay nearly $1 million
in rent on a condo he could have purchased outright for less than $800,000.

The defense also said that Ciavarella had no idea that Powell separately was sending cash
stuffed in boxes to Conahan. There was "a back-room deal going on between Mike Conahan and
Bob Powell, and Mark Ciavarella had no idea what was occurring," defense attorney Al Flora told
the jury.

After the verdicts were announced, Ciavarella was ordered to forfeit $997,600 that Mericle had
paid him.

Luzerne County paid Powell's company more than $30 million between 2003 and 2007 to house
juveniles at PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care. The county could have built its own
juvenile center for about $9 million.
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Ciavarella and Conahan initially pleaded guilty in February 2009 to honest services fraud and tax
evasion in a deal that called for a sentence of 87 months in prison. But their plea deals were
rejected by Senior U.S. District Judge Edward M. Kosik, who ruled they had failed to accept
responsibility for their actions.

For his convictions, Ciavarella faces a maximum of 157 years in prison — but the range under
federal sentencing guidelines is about 12 1/2 years to about 15 1/2 years, prosecutors said.

A federal grand jury in Harrisburg subsequently indicted the judges on charges of racketeering,
fraud, money laundering, bribery, extortion and tax offenses. Conahan pleaded guilty to a single
racketeering charge last year and awaits sentencing.

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